Penny Lancaster Admits She Might Have Walked Away from Rod Stewart If He Hadn’t Wanted More Children: “That Would’ve Been Very Difficult”

The Grammy-winning singer and his wife Penny Lancaster share two sons together — Alastair, 19, and Aiden, 14.

Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster’s relationship nearly unraveled in its early days due to a disagreement about children.

Lancaster, 54, revealed to Saga magazine that when she and Stewart first got together, the singer — already a father of six — wasn’t keen on expanding his family. She, however, always knew she wanted kids of her own.

“Yes, I would have left him,” she admitted. “And that would have been very hard. But we just went with the flow.” Fortunately, Stewart eventually changed his mind. “Now Rod always says, ‘I wish I’d said yes [to more kids] earlier, because then we could have had more children.’”

The couple, who tied the knot in 2007, went on to welcome two sons — Alastair, 19, and Aiden, 14. Lancaster also revealed that as recently as five years ago, she and Stewart considered adoption but ultimately decided against it, worrying that the age gap might be too large.

Beyond their children together, Stewart is father to daughters Sarah, 61, Kimberly, 46, Ruby, 38, and Renee, 33, as well as sons Sean, 45, and Liam, 31, from previous relationships.

In the same interview, Lancaster joked that she often feels like she has “three boys” at home, referring to her husband as “a big baby who needs my attention in a different way.” She also praised her eldest son Alastair, an aspiring filmmaker, calling him “a gorgeous boy, but also very kind and polite like his father.”

Stewart has spoken before about his love of fatherhood. In 2021, he told PEOPLE that his greatest joy comes from seeing his wife and children happy. “I have to be several different fathers because of the different age groups of my kids. You really have to treat all of them as individuals with individual problems,” he explained.

He even recalled having “the talk” with one of his teenage sons. “My 15-year-old is dating girls, so I had to give him a sex lesson. I told him what he should and shouldn’t do, but he’s on top of it. He just said, ‘Dad, I’ve got the internet. I know everything.’”